[Coyote Toast]

Thank you Dominus for the link to that thread. For anyone who hasn't read it, I highly recommend it.

I've been struggling with this topic lately. No question in my mind but that MB is inherently a healthy physical activity. It is widespread through the animal kingdom and mammals of all sorts practice it. Human children practice it as soon as they discover their genitalia, simply because it feels good. Such practice is clearly divorced from the complicated world of mature sexuality.

Soooo... where does that leave us? On a slippery slope, that's where. MB releases neurochemical cocktails that are pleasurable and addictive. Visualization during MB mimics PA. However, there's nothing inherently wrong with visualization or the neurochemicals in our body, either. The real problem here is that we are already addicts. Non-alcoholics can drink without succumbing to an addictive process. Alcoholics cannot. Behaviors that accelerate our descent of the slope are not helping to stay clean and sober.

My helpful sponsor advised me that self control is a good thing to practice if you want to stay clean. It makes sense to me. That said, am I willing to eliminate all MB from my life? Probably not, since I am now living alone and have no opportunity for intimacy with someone else. But I'm trying to see it for what it is. It's not PA, but the connection is there.